AL East front office grades midway through 2024 season: Did Brian Cashman do enough?
By Bill Felber
Toronto Blue Jays: Ross Atkins, president and CEO. Grade: D.
Atkins has taken a roasting – somewhat unfairly – for his personnel moves of recent seasons. In 2024, he deserves whatever approbation Jays fans want to deliver.
The Blue Jays front office has thus far made 20 moves impacting the team’s big league roster, but only eight of those moves have yielded a positive value; 12 have been negative.
What follows may be about the worst thing you can say about a front office executive: Atkins’ most productive offseason move to date was signing journeyman Isiah Kiner-Falefa.
In fairness to Kiner-Falefa, he’s off to the best start of his career, with a .283 average and .734 OPS. But Kiner-Falefa has never been a power bat and isn’t in the process of becoming one. If he’s your offensive threat, you’re in trouble.
The more expensive signings – Justin Turner (-0.7), Kevin Kiermaier (-0.2) and Daniel Vogelbach (-0.7) – have all basically flopped. So have the holdovers, notably George Springer and Alex Manaoh. Those guys – whose deals were in place prior to 2024 – don’t count against Atkins’ score this year. But they are indicative of the broad-scale challenges that are holding Toronto back.
Score: -1.0. Grade: D.